Edmund Burke, an Anglo-Irish statesman and political theorist, is credited, with coining the phrase “Fourth Estate” in 1771.

The Three Estates were the Lords Spiritual, Lords Temporal, and Commons in the British Parliament. The Fourth Estate, the press, he said, “is more important [by] far than they all”. He saw the press as an essential independent force in political discourse with government overseeing a democratic society.

Communication in its diverse forms now dominates our way of life. Until the invention of the telegraph, news could only travel as fast as a human carrier. On 24 May 1844, the first message, “What hath God wrought?” was telegraphed.

In 1922, Britain formed the British Broadcasting Company. John Reith, the first general manager, argued in the public interest for a public corporation run at arm’s length from the government of the day, supervised by a board of governors. Reith successfully fought off politicians’ attempts to influence the BBC, while offering programs to educate, inform and entertain.

Thus, the fundamental dilemma in the relationship between Broadcasting House and Westminster was entrenched and remains, as it has in Australia, which modelled the ABC on the BBC. It has never been an easy relationship between the politicians who fund the public broadcaster, and the broadcasting institution producing programming to serve the public interest.

Australia did not protect a public broadcasting monopoly — our ABC — in the same way as Britain, and would eventually license two, then three commercial television networks based on the US model. The commercial model, however, faced its own paradox.

In the 1920s, US Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover called for regulation of network broadcasting recognising the excesses of unbridled industry control.

He said: “We cannot allow any single person or group to place themselves in a position where they can censor the material which shall be broadcast to the public, nor do I believe the government should ever be placed in a position of censoring this material.”

In both commercial and public broadcasting systems, this ethical paradox or moral dilemma raised by the ideals of informing — free from influence, with balance, fairness and freedom of speech — the public interest, has beleaguered government and the public and commercial media industries.

The history of broadcasting news in the US exemplifies the friction and disputes which impacted broadcasting when ratings became the measure of success.

In 1929, William S. Paley purchased a small radio network. He recognised good programming was the key to selling advertising time, and that advertisers were the most significant element in the broadcasting equation. With that business model, he grew the Columbia Broadcasting System from a tiny chain of stations into one of the world’s dominant communication empires.

During World War II, Paley had served in London in the Office of War Information. While there he became friends with Edward R. Murrow, an educator working in radio broadcasting, a new business, different from print journalism in that it happened in real time. Murrow could tell a gripping dramatised story. Whether speaking from the rooftops of London during the Blitz or on a bombing raid over Berlin, he became one of the most trusted voices of the war, credited with influencing US participation.

News from Europe had an important following in the US, and by the end of the war a wireless or radio could be found in most homes.

Post war Edward R Murrow with the News, a 15-minute program at 7:45pm was launched on CBS on 29 September 1947. It ran for 12 years and was the most authoritative news broadcast on radio. Murrow initially had no interest in television, even saying that he wished it was never invented. But he accepted the opportunity to work with producer Fred Friendly to host a TV version of his radio news program Hear It Now called See it now. As he had done in radio, Murrow captured the television audience and Alcoa became the sponsor.

This period covered the Cold War. In 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first nuclear weapons, Communism took hold in China. Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy began his infamous witch hunt for Reds and Murrow challenged him with the fight of his career.

Paley warned Friendly and Murrow to be careful with what they said. CBS’ policy when dealing with controversial issues was that the audience should be left with no impression as to which side the journalist favoured. Murrow objected to the adage of balance, taking the view the issues were not always equally balanced. He walked a fine line of maintaining objectivity while telling highly charged emotional stories. He investigated and researched his subjects thoroughly and editorialised at the end. He set precedents that have been debated since.

The famous story of what happened next has been told in Fred Friendly’s book, Due to Circumstances Beyond our Control, 1967, which I have drawn on for this article, and in George Clooney’s acclaimed feature film Goodnight and Goodluck, 2005.

In essence, Murrow won the contest with Senator McCarthy. His program was cleverly constructed so McCarthy would be condemned out of his own mouth, by his own techniques: his bullying interrogations, his accusations and his use of false evidence. It was a damning indictment of the Senator’s methods.

Hundreds of calls and thousands of telegrams came flooding into CBS — between 75,000 and 100,000 — running 10 to 1 in support of the program. Murrow offered McCarthy equal time to respond and Alcoa, still sponsor, passed the bill on to CBS to be paid. At the end of McCarthy’s television response, Morrow had the last word:

“When the record is finally written, as it will be one day, it will answer the question who has helped the communist cause and who has served his country better, Senator McCarthy or I? I would like to be remembered by the answer to that question.”

In December 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy by a vote of 67 to 22. The press reaction was overwhelming. In The New York Times, Jack Gould wrote: “It was a long step forward in television journalism.” The McCarthy programs came to be regarded as the most significant in broadcast journalism history.

But CBS remained silent, commercial television shunned political controversy. Friendly and Murrow were to lose both their sponsor Alcoa, and their slot in prime time. Paley withdrew his strong support for prime-time investigative journalism, and the $64,000 Question quiz show took over the See it now timeslot.

Murrow’s program budget had been a source of constant irritation to the business affairs managers at CBS. The fact that CBS’ profits were at an all-time high of more than US$16 million after taxes; that See it now’s out-of-pocket costs were comparatively favourable to those of an hour’s entertainment program; that the series was the single most prestigious project in all television, the winner of every conceivable award; that it was the standard against which all news and documentary broadcasts were measured – all these factors made little dent on those who believed that the burden exceeded the glory.

CBS cancelled See it now in July 1958 and Murrow was devastated. On 15 October 1958, Murrow addressed the annual convention of the Radio Television News Directors Association in Chicago and excoriated the television industry:

“I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest possible audience for everything; by the absence of a sustained study of the state of the nation…

“This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends.”

The Quiz Show era proved to be a ratings and commercial bonanza for the networks. Noting the considerable success of the CBS quiz show, NBC had come up with their own, Twenty-One.

In 1959, a quiz show contestant went public to say the Twenty-One show was rigged. Prosecutors began to investigate both shows and a major scandal followed. Frank Stanton appeared before a congressional committee and took full responsibility in what was described as “his most humiliating and finest hour”. (Quiz Show 1994. Directed by Robert Redford). It was a turning point in the history of broadcast journalism as television slid into a mire of greed and corruption.

Walter Lippmann, one of America’s most distinguished newspapermen wrote: “Television has been caught perpetrating a fraud which is so gigantic that it calls into question the foundations of the industry.” Lippmann’s thesis was that by constantly pandering to the largest possible audience in search of the most profitable advertising, television had become the opposite of free. “In fact, it was the creature, the servant and indeed the prostitute of merchandising.”

Murrow lived to see the dishonesty and degradation endemic in television exposed; he died of cancer on 27 April 1965, at the age of 57. In 1966, CBS decided to stay with its regular sit-com programming, including I Love Lucy instead of screening the Vietnam War hearings.

CBS grew beyond everyone’s expectations, marching to the beat of the ratings. In 1967, Friendly asked Paley, “Why do you have to make more money every year?” He responded, “Management’s obligation is to protect the interests of those stockholders.”

A footnote to the Paley story: In a London court in April 2011, Rupert Murdoch said: “This is the most humble day of my life” when he made a “full and humble” apology for News Corp journalists who had hacked into the voicemail of missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler (later found murdered) and other celebrities in search of salacious stories for News of the World. The court heard how its supposedly hands-off chairman spawned a culture of coarseness and brutality in the organisation. Son James took the rap, Rebecca Brooks, editor of the tabloid, resigned — to be reinstated later — and life went on, although it seems, life within the Murdoch family has never been quite the same since.

And the debate about equal time, objectivity, and good news journalism has continued. After Murrow, no reporter or production team at CBS was ever given such complete responsibility for program content or expression of opinion.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.